How to see the files attached inside a PDF

Open the Attachments panel. In PDF by Zaweba it lists every file embedded in the PDF, and from there you can open one or save it to your PC. You can also attach a file of your own, change an attachment's description, or remove it.

PDFs can carry other files inside them, much as an email carries attachments. An invoice might hold the spreadsheet it came from, a report its raw data, or a set of drawings the original design files. They are easy to miss because nothing on the page shows them.

Why you might find attachments

Electronic invoices often embed a data file alongside the readable page, so accounting software can read the figures. Technical reports may include data tables or source files. Forms sometimes carry supporting documents. And a PDF made by combining material can end up with files attached along the way.

Looking in the Attachments panel is worth doing whenever a PDF is bigger than its pages would suggest. Hidden attachments are a common reason.

Opening, saving and adding attachments

Open the document and open the Attachments panel from the tool panels. Each embedded file is listed.

To look at one, open it. The app opens it from a temporary copy, so you are working with a copy rather than the file inside the PDF. To keep one, save it to a folder of your choice.

To add a file, use the attach option and pick it. Give it a description that says what it is, such as "Survey data, March", so the next reader understands why it's there. You can change the description later.

To take a file out, remove it. Then save the PDF.

Safety first

Attachments can be anything, which includes programs and scripts. PDF by Zaweba never opens those: you can save them if you really need them, but the app won't run them for you. That's a sensible protection, since a PDF from an unknown sender is a classic way of passing on something harmful.

If you do save an unexpected program from a PDF, treat it with the same caution as a program attached to an email from a stranger.

Checking before you share

Check before you send. If you are passing a PDF to someone outside your organisation, look in the Attachments panel first. It's easy to forget that a working spreadsheet went in with the report.

Remove what isn't needed. Unwanted attachments make files larger and can give away more than you meant. For a thorough clean before sending, Tools > Actions includes steps to remove hidden information and to sanitise, and the built-in Prepare for distribution action does that kind of tidying in one go.

Use descriptions. A plain file name like data2.csv means little to someone else; a short description does.

Collections are different

Some PDFs are collections, sometimes called portfolios, where the whole point is a set of files. PDF by Zaweba shows those as a file list with their own columns and folders, and opens the PDFs in them in tabs. Ordinary attachments, by contrast, are extras that ride along with a normal document.

Either way, everything happens offline on your PC, and the Attachments panel is the place to see what a PDF is carrying.